King City Music Club Chorus practices every Monday for future performances

Jo Ann Brinkman is the director, and Muriel Dresser accompanies the group

With about two dozen members, the King City Music Club Chorus has a lot of fun at its weekly practices and always has room for more people who love to sing.

The chorus rehearses every Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the King City Clubhouse during the weekly get-togethers of the club; the chorus performs at open mics held on the first Monday of the month at 2 p.m., and some chorus members do solos at the open mics as well.

Muriel Dresser has had a long career playing the piano and singing, and for the first couple of years that the chorus existed, she both accompanied the chorus as well as directed it, but about a year ago, Jo Ann Brinkman stepped in as the director, much to Dresser's relief.

Brinkman is a friend of Pam, the wife of the club's bass viol player Wendell Damm, and learned that the chorus could use a director.

"I've taught music in the classroom in the Tigard-Tualatin School District, mostly at Metzger Elementary, and always wanted to be a singer," said Brinkman, who leads other adult singing groups and has directed the children's choir at her church for 10 years.

"We are so grateful to have her," Dresser said.

If Brinkman can't make a rehearsal, Lynn Turner, a member of the chorus, is the back-up director.

While the chorus has been active for quite a while, it continues to attract new members, including more recently Fran Walston, Else Malcom, Rich Haller and Mary Jeffers.

"We do this for the sheer love of music," Walston said. "We're a bunch of hams. This is the most fun I've had since high school."

Turner added, "We're all very supportive of each other. And no matter what is going on in our lives, even unpleasant things, it disappears when we get here."

Shirley Frank joked, "I think we like doing this because we like to show off."

Dresses stressed that people don't have to read music or have prior singing experience to join.

For more information about the chorus, call Dresser or just show up any Monday at 2 p.m.